The present invention relates to an image recording apparatus of the type which employs a photo- and pressure-sensitive heat-developable material which is composed of a substrate and a layer formed on the substrate from a material which is photo-sensitive and which enables a latent image thereon to be developed by heat and the developed image to be fixed by application of pressure, wherein the latent image formed on the photo- and pressure-sensitive heat-developable material formed through an exposure is developed by heating and the developed image is transferred to an image-receiving material having an image-receiving layer as the image-receiving material and the photo- and pressure-sensitive heat-developable material are superposed on each other and pressed together, whereby the image is recorded in the image-receiving material.
An image recording material employing microcapsules containing a photo-ensitive composition has been known. An example of such a recording material is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 179,836/1982. This recording material has a substrate which carries capsules made of a synthetic polymeric resin and containing a vinyl compound, a photopolymerization initiator and a coloring precursor.
In recording an image using this recording material, the material is first exposed so that the microcapsules are hardened in conformity with the form of the image. Then, as the recording material is pressed, the microcapsules which have not been hardened are ruptured so as to release the coloring agent precursor, thus forming a color image. This image recording system provides a high quality of the recorded image with a dry-type simple processing, but suffers from a disadvantage in that the photo-sensitivity is much smaller as compared with the system which makes use of silver halide.
Under this circumstance, the present applicant has proposed, in the specification of Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 275742/1986, a novel recording material which has a high photo-sensitivity and which ensured a high quality of the recorded image with a simple dry-type process. This recording material is a photo- and pressure-sensitive heat-developable material constituted by a carrier and a layer formed on the surface of the carrier, the layer containing at least a photo-sensitive silver halide, reducing agent, polymerizable compound and a color image forming substance, wherein the polymerizable compound and the color image forming substance are confined in common microcapsules.
An image recording method which makes use of this photo- and pressure-sensitive heat-developable material is disclosed in the specification of Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 278849/1986 filed by the same applicant. According to this method, the heat-developable material is first exposed so that a latent image is formed thereon in conformity with the image to be recorded. Then, the material is heated for development so that the polymerizable compound in the area where the latent image exists is polymerized to produce a polymeric compound, thus thermally setting the microcapsules. Then, the material is superposed on an image-receiving material having an image receiving layer capable of receiving the color image forming substance, and is pressed to the image-receiving material so that at least part of the microcapsules having no latent image is ruptured so as to transfer the color image forming substance to the image-receiving material, thereby forming an image on the latter.
However, no image recording apparatus has been proposed hitherto which is capable of automatically performing a series of operation including exposure of the photo- and pressure-sensitive heat-developable material, development of the latent image by heating, superposing the image-receiving material and transfer of the developed image by application of pressure to the superposed materials.